The output growth during July-September 2018 quarter has increased to 61% from 49% in April-June 2018, as per industry body FICCI's latest manufacturing survey.

FICCI's latest quarterly survey on the manufacturing sector portrays a positive outlook in Q-2 (July-September 2018-19) on account of higher production.

This is the highest percentage of respondents expecting higher production since Q-2 of 2015-16 where 63% of respondents expected higher production- a twelve quarters high sentiment.

The percentage of respondents reporting low production decreased to 9% in Q-2 2018-19 from 13% in Q-1 of 2018-19.

In terms of order books, 57% of the respondents in July-September 2018 are expecting higher number of orders against 49% in April-June 2018.

83% of the respondents maintained either more or same level of inventory, which is more as compared to 69% in the previous quarter. This has been due to low demand and impact of GST on sales.

The outlook for exports is also somewhat positive as half of the participants are expecting a rise in exports for Q-2 2018-19 and 32% are expecting exports to continue on same path as that of same quarter last year.

However, rupee depreciation has not led to any significant increase in exports during Q-1 2018-19 as 83% of the respondents reported that the exports were not affected much by rupee depreciation.

Thereby, emphasizing that there were other global factors that are stymieing the growth of our exports.